9 years...

Happy Anniversary to the greatest husband I know!

It's been 9 short years since we said "I do", but every day keeps getting better and better. We have celebrated many happy times and have prayed through many rough times. I could not ask for a better man to walk with me through this life we've been given. He has given me 3 of the greatest joys (and frustrations…can I get an Amen from the mommas out there!!) in my life. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching him play, snuggle, and talk with our girls. Andy and I are truly blessed to have had these 9 years together and we look forward to many many more!!

In this collage, there is a picture of every single year we've been married. It's starts, obviously, with our wedding picture in the middle, then goes to the far top left. 

Hiking and visits

This past weekend, Mom and dad came up for a quick visit. We love getting to spend time with them and we also love that they aren't afraid to work while they are visiting! :) Saturday morning we took them on a little poison ivy infested hike…Welcome mimi and papa!! ;) I think we can safely say that no one got poison ivy, whew! We also got to visit the waterfall again. The girls have been begging to go back to the falls so they can climb the rocks.

Mimi and Papa with the girls on our descent down

a family shot…Overlook Kendall's facial expressions in these pictures, she just wanted to snuggle and be held the majority of the trip.

Mimi, Papa and the grandkids

Mimi and papa

We also visited StumpHouse tunnel. It was such neat tunnel! It was suppose to be a train tunnel, but was never finished. Alley loved the tunnel!

daddy and Alley getting ready to go in as far as they could

Me and my girls…

Andy did a great job taking some silhouette shots. I love MC's leg pose in this:)

a fun black and white

To round off our weekend of fun, Mimi and Papa helped us in our yard. Andy and I do not have green thumbs, but we are trying to learn. So we learned a lot of pruning this weekend! Thanks mom and dad for braving the poison ivy, scaling rocks, pushing children on swings for hours and hours, pulling weeds, trimming bushes and loving on the kids. We appreciate everything you did and every moment of time with y'all! As Kendall said after they left, "they didn't stay long enough. I hope they come back tomorrow." See y'all tomorrow!;)

Happy Easter 2014

The Alley's came in this weekend to celebrate Easter and Will's birthday with us. We always have such a great time when they come and visit. I'm hoping we can make these visits a little more regular once they settle down in Fort Bragg this summer. The kids have loved getting to know their cousins much better and we adults have loved reconnecting!

We had planned to have an afternoon at the lake, buuuuuut, mother nature decided to have a little laugh on our expense. A day that was suppose to be 75, sunny and only a 10% chance of rain, turned into 60 and rain….ugh! But, we are resourceful….off to Par-Tee Time! Par-Tee Time is an indoor bounce house, mini golf and batting cage warehouse. It's great, cheap entertainment:)

Kendall working on her future in the LPGA…we've got a long way to go;)

MC trying her hand at golf…literally

The guys couldn't pass up the batting cage!

CS got in on the action and did awesome! Softball in this girls future?!?!?

And of course, Henry refused to be left out!!

Sweet girls posing while playing

Afterwards, we headed over to Chipotle for Will's Birthday dinner! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

The Easter Bunny was really busy that night…good thing the Bunny had margaritas to help…;)

They were so excited Easter morning

Don't let these faces fool you, they were excited….until mom made them stop and take a picture…fail.

My sweet Kendall

MC and Henry….such a love.hate relationship;) These two are just plain adorable!!!

Cousin twins

My precious Alley

The girls

Me and my girls

daddy and his girls

aaaaaaand, the family

yeah for us! ;)

Happy Easter! He is Risen!!!

Tiger Spring Weekend

Andy had to work the Clemson football spring game on Saturday. So we all went out to enjoy ourselves at the spring festival on campus. Before it all started, we took the girls to the volleyball match. the girls have loved getting to watch girls sports these past two years, and "walleyball" has become an instant favorite. 

Andy and his girls

Kendall showing off her hula-hooping skills at the spring festival

MC working hard at jul-hooping…not quite there, but one of these days;)

Alley showing us how its done...

next up…rowing! The girls have been fascinated with the idea of rowing and have begged us to teach them how to do it. Um, sorry to break it to you girls, daddy and I have never rowed before...

not super excited about taking pictures…oh well

The girls at the spring game! We had so much fun today!!

Life is good

Basketball season is over so we are very excited to have our daddy back in our lives:) Since he travels a lot over weekends from October through March, we really cherish our time together come April and May. This is the time of year we get to explore Clemson and the surrounding areas and just enjoy spending time together. While in NYC, we found "I love NY" shirts in orange and we thought they were perfect Clemson shirts for the girls. They absolutely loved the shirts!

Doesn't everyone play outside in a tiara and a froggy floatie???

our girls out on the lake

family lunch on the lake for our Solid Orange Friday:)

On our first weekend off from basketball, we took a family hike to Falls Park. It was such a beautiful day and such a fun family adventure. I believe we went a little off the trail to get to the bottom of the falls, but the girls did AWESOME and loved it!

a view from the bottom

we found the perfect rock to take pictures on...

 all three taking a break from the rock climbing

Me and my girls!

My sweet MC

we even went under the water fall…they did awesome and had such adventurous spirits!

behind us is the water…MC was a little apprehensive about bing under the rock that the water flowed over…but she was a good sport

 The girls keep asking when we are going to go back! Soon, VERY soon!

New York!

Clemson made it to the NIT semi-finals in New York City!! Alleluia!! This was an incredible achievement for our boys. They were ranked 14th in the ACC coming into the 2013-2014 basketball season. We ended the season being ranked 6th and went on to play 4 games in the post-season! I was lucky enough to be able to travel with the team to NYC, and I loved every minute of it. Of course, I missed my girls but they were in great hands….

Papa and Mimi, the task masters. Actually, they are so patient and sweet to the girls and even let them help (I use the word "help" very, very loosely when describing my children!)

So while the girls were slaving away, I had this view from my treadmill…Well hello NYC!

the first day we braved the rain and visited the 9/11 memorial. What a breath-taking memorial. 

the white flowers are placed on the names of those who would be celebrating a birthday on that specific day. Happy Birthday Dean...

the trip wouldn't be complete without a visit to M&M world…YUMMY! 

Which color should I get????

times square

we checked out Toys 'R Us and found this incredible builds…all made of legos…heaven

 aaaaaaaand, we found the Lego store!!!

Rockefeller Plaza

Andy and I took a walk around Central Park…this place was amazing! If I lived in NYC, I'd HAVE to live near this park!!

The MET…wonderful wonderful exhibits!

Our boys playing SMU…we played tough, but couldn't hold onto our lead in the second half…bummer. BUT, we had a great season and have A LOT to be proud of!

Todd and Joy came up for the game! We looooved getting to see them, even though it was way too shot!

look what cutie was waiting for us at home:)!